BY Adeniyi Onifade
The Nigerian Aviation industry will not easily forget year 2022 being a year plagued by acute scarcity of forex and Aviation Fuel, popularly known as Jet A1 for greater part of the year, resulting therefore, in about 150 per cent hike in cost of flight tickets that remained till end of the year.
After over 61 years of flight operations, Aero Contractors, Nigeria’s oldest indigenous operator announced ‘temporarily’ the shutting down of its operations through a statement on July 18 last year by the management of the airline. It explained its action to be due to the impact of challenging operating environment on its daily operations. That was coming amid a supposed post-pandemic rejuvenation by the industry.
A temporary closure of another domestic airline came in quick succession after Aero shutdown. On July 20, NCAA suspended Dana Airlines’ Air Transport Licence (ATL) and Air Operator Certificate (AOC) indefinitely, effective from midnight of July 20, 2022.
Despite the highs and lows, the Managing Director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Capt. Rabiu Yadudu, injected some rays of hope indicating that Nigeria’s aviation has fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic era, and it is presently performing at 111 per cent, attributing the quick recovery to resilience and determination of all stakeholders to achieve positive results.
Price of aviation fuel increased by 121.4 per cent to N620 per litre in June 2022, from N280 per litre in the corresponding period of 2021, due mainly to the rising price of crude oil in the international market.
The price of crude, hovering at $128 per barrel, had stood at about $70 per barrel then, thus costing refiners less to process it into aviation fuel, a deregulated product, that is imported from the global market.
Reports have it that the current rise in crude oil prices, which is also fuelled by the Ukraine-Russian war, sanction on Russian oil, market instability and speculation, increased cost of operations.
Consequently, oil refining companies now incur additional cost in the process of buying and processing crude into aviation fuel, which they pass in form of high prices to airline operators.
In order to remain in business, airline operators have also increased their flight rates to cover the rising cost of operations to make profit.
For instance, as at June last year, Ibom Air charged N50,000 for its economy class from Lagos to Uyo, but later at a point, the airline charged N86,000 from Uyo to Lagos.
Many air passengers have resorted to travelling by road as operators charge lower fares.
Meanwhile, there are no fixed fares by airlines as they charge differently, depending on the demand and supply of passengers, slashing the fares when there’s low patronage and increase when there is upsurge.
Valuechain’s findings have revealed that TotalEnergies which is specialised in supplying, marketing of jet fuels and aviation gasolines for over 50 years, is not resting on its oars to ensure adequate supply of the products, despite the industry’s somersaulting experience in Nigeria. It asserts that its primary aim is to satisfy its customers by supplying them with high-quality Aviation fuels, under the most stringent safety and environmental standards as well as a complete range of services dedicated to Aviation (advice, refuelling cards, etc).
Aviation Turbine Kerosene (ATK) is the generic name for all types of aviation fuel. The name DPK connotes the dual use of the product as Household Kerosene (HHK) and ATK. The monitoring body in the industry is known as JIG which is a committee of all major marketers of the product and the airline representative like IATA.
The checklist requirement is that the product quality remains unchanged from the refinery to the aircraft and that its source remains known throughout the chain of transfers from the refinery to the aircraft. This is referred to in the industry as traceability.
TotalEnergies’ leader status in Europe and Africa gives it a strategic position in the aviation market, guaranteeing its customers a worldwide AIR TOTAL network at more than 250 international airports in 75 countries on 5 continents.
It is present in all the aviation segments: airlines, industries, defence, and business and general aviation. Skilled professional teams provide innovative solutions perfectly adapted to the customers’ needs in each of these sectors.
TotalEnergies is a founding member of the international Joint Inspection Group (JIG). The mission of the JIG is to promote safety, quality control and efficiency at aviation fuel facilities and develop greater global standardization of aviation fuel operating standards. JIG establishes Aviation Fuel Quality Control and Operating standards endorsed by IATA. International oil companies perform inspections of their airport facilities to ensure that they are operated in accordance with JIG procedures.
There are two major products in the Nigerian aviation industry: Avgas (Aviation Gasoline) Aviation Turbine Kerosene (also called Jet A-1) Aviation Gasoline with Total Nigeria Plc as the sole marketer of Avgas in Nigeria.
Its involvement in this business of AVGAS is to ensure that quality requirement is not compromised. It is worthy to note that since it started marketing the product no incident of product quality has been recorded. And it is solely because of ensuring that the product quality is maintained and its source is certifiable and traceable at all times. There are various types of AVGAS:
Ÿ AVGAS 80
Ÿ AVGAS 91
Ÿ AVGAS 100
Ÿ AVGAS 100L
Ÿ AVGAS 100LL
The highest grade amongst all its types is AVGAS 100LL which TotalEnergies markets. It is used only by aircrafts with piston engines like the ones used by the Aviation College to train pilots.